


short stack

by kellifer_fic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, deaged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:04:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2538674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellifer_fic/pseuds/kellifer_fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy Lewis knows that yesterday she was an adult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	short stack

**Author's Note:**

> Halloween ficlet prompt for Clint/Darcy kid!fic.

Darcy Lewis knows that yesterday she was an adult.

She knows it with same unshakeable certainty she knows that the sky is blue and cows say moo, which is why it's pretty strange to be looking in a mirror and seeing a smaller version of herself, seven, maybe eight years old. She's in a t-shirt that proclaims _Team Captain America!_ on the front in glittery letters that's too big for her, legs like sticks poking out the bottom. 

It's all really, horribly strange.

She _remembers_ being an adult, vaguely. It's all a little hard to process and far away. Darcy pushes her long hair back, scrunches up her face and then turns around so she can see her back over her shoulder. A new perspective doesn't help, but it does tell her that her t-shirt says, _Heck yeah!_ on the back in equally garish glitter writing.

There's one thing that's the most pressing concern out of everything right now and it's that she's alone and she doesn't like it. She's in a bedroom, a big girl's bedroom but there's still some toys scattered about. Darcy picks up a plush guy with felt hair and a plushie bow and arrow for courage and then slip-slides over to the door in her socked feet. She eases the door open and peeks out into the hallway beyond, finding it empty.

Large and scary and empty.

Darcy knows, just like she knows she was an adult yesterday, that her mom isn't around. Not in this building. Not even in the same state. She does seem to remember something about a ceiling voice and that there _are_ other people in the place, lots of them. She just needs to find one.

"Hello, Mr Ceiling?" she asks timidly. The concept of an intelligent, embedded AI is probably beyond her right now, but she definitely recalls a gentle, friendly voice that would always chat with her when she was feeling lonely and right now she definitely feels that. 

"Miss Lewis," the disembodied voice says and Darcy squeaks and buries her face in her toy for a second. "Oh, I'm so sorry, did I scare you?" it asks gently.

Knowing there's a ceiling voice and actually hearing it are apparently two very different prospects.

"No need to be frightened. In case you don't remember, my name is Jarvis and we are good friends."

"We are?" Darcy asks, looking up.

"Certainly. I like you very much."

"I like you too," Darcy decides. "Jarvis? Does anybody know I'm here?"

"I have alerted Miss Potts and Agent Coulson to your presence. They are currently attempting to get Mr Barton... down and they will be with you presently."

 _Potts_ and _Coulson_ certainly sound like familiar names to her. "Jarvis? Will you stay with me until they come?"

"Of course Miss Lewis," Jarvis agrees and proceeds to tell her the story of the Little Mermaid while Darcy lowers herself onto the floor outside her door to wait.

*

The woman is tall, willowy and has beautiful red hair. Darcy's mind after some dithering produces the name _Pepper_ and she allows Pepper to take her hand and lead her down the hallway and to an elevator at the end. Pepper's talking into a little phone, pausing every now and again to smile down at Darcy. "I've got Darcy. What the-" she cuts herself off, glances down at Darcy again quickly and finishes, "- _firetruck_ is going on?"

Darcy hears a tinny, chortled, "Firetruck?" from the other end of the phone. 

"You find Steve or Tony?"

Darcy doesn't hear the other end of the conversation this time but Pepper frowns so she guesses the answer is no. She hangs up and then tucks her phone away. "I like your Hawkeye," Pepper says, touching a gentle finger to her toy's felt hair.

"Is that his name?" Darcy asks, holding the small toy in front of her and then pressing it back into her chest. For some reason it makes her feel better, safer, to hang onto it.

"I didn't know they'd been released yet. You obviously know the right people," Pepper says, and that doesn't really make sense, but she's smiling again so Darcy smiles back. 

They step off the elevator into another empty corridor. They pass three doors on the left before entering a fourth and it's some kind of large room with a glass wall and the biggest table Darcy's ever seen. She immediately lets go of Pepper's hand and dives underneath it. She lets out a small yip of surprise when she nearly runs right into a boy already under the table, sitting cross-legged with spiky hair and a scowl on his face. 

"Clint, Darcy, out from under there please," a male voice says and then Darcy sees a tie that's followed by a face, looking stern and amused at the same time. 

"Phil!" Darcy says, grabbing for his swinging tie and he lets her snatch it and uses it to tug her out from under the table. She lets go when she's out and quietly allows Phil to set her on the tabletop so she can swing her legs and look about.

"That answers the question of whether they'll know who we are," Phil says. His hand comes up like he's going to pat Darcy on the head but then he drops it again with a grimace. 

"Then why is Clint hiding?" Pepper asks with a smirk. 

"He's annoyed because I made him get out of the air vent."

"I was _fine_ ," a voice issues from underneath the table, full of adolescent indignation.

"When you're full-sized again, you can crawl around up there to your heart's content," Phil says.

"Do we know what this is?" Pepper asks, leaning on the table next to Darcy. She has a long, pretty necklace on and when she sees it's caught Darcy's eye, she takes it off and drapes it around Darcy's neck. Darcy picks up the jeweled owl at the end of a delicate chain and traces the tiny engraved feathers with a small finger reverentially.

"I have retrieved the Captain!" a voice booms from the doorway and Darcy cringes into Pepper's side. The man who has just entered, big and blond and jolly-looking, is herding a smaller blond boy in front of him but he halts when he spots Darcy. "Is this Darcy I see before me?"

"Maybe turn down the exuberance a little?" Phil suggests, taking the small boy by the shoulder and steering him to a chair. The new boy sits and folds his hands neatly on the table, offering a timid wave at Darcy when he sees her who waves back. 

"I apologize, of course," the man says and then he crosses to Darcy and drops to one knee. He takes Darcy's smaller hands in his huge ones very solemnly and presses the backs of them to his forehead. "Did I scare you little one?"

"Only for a minute," Darcy says and reaches out to tug at the man's hair when he releases her hands. "Hi, Thor."

"She knows me! The Captain did also. Could they be only smaller in stature but not in mind?" Thor says, standing again.

"I think they have their memories but they seem to be stuck somewhere in the middle, developmentally speaking. They have the knowledge but not the processing power," Phil says, crossing his arms and looking deflated. 

"Do we know what mischief this is?" Thor asks.

"Not yet. Two of the Avengers have been mysteriously de-aged while they slept so I would say it was an attack of some kind, except," Phil says, gesturing at Darcy. 

"Three," another red-haired woman says from the doorway. She has another boy slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, dark haired this time. He's squawking with indignation and pummeling her on the back with tiny fists. "Tony just sounds like regular Tony."

"This is not dignified for either of us!" Tony shrills and then is unceremoniously deposited on the table next to the blond boy who immediately reaches out to steady him. "Oh my god, _Steve_?" he chokes and falls back on the table, laughing and drumming his feet.

"They seem to all be coping with the regression differently," Phil says. Darcy spots the boy, Clint, from under the table peeking over the top at the commotion, just the tips of his spiky hair and his eyes showing. Darcy pokes her tongue out at him because it seems like the thing to do. He rises up enough that he can return the gesture and Phil rounds the table and snags him so fast Darcy doesn't really see it happen. The ensuing struggle, as Tony apparently would say, is not dignified for anyone.

Clint is back under the table and Phil is nursing a bitten hand at the end of it so it doesn't seem like anyone wins.

"All I can say is thank god you were offworld," Pepper says feelingly to Thor.

"It might have been nice to take a jaunt back into the realm of childhood," Thor says and then seems to do a mental count. "Shall I see if our friend Bruce is similarly afflicted?"

"Please," Phil says, nodding quickly and Thor disappears back out the door. The second red-haired woman, Natasha, Darcy remembers, comes over to her.

"Nice Hawkeye," she says.

"Thanks," Darcy says. 

Clint's hands appear from under the table just below her swinging feet. "Can I see?"

"Come out and you can," Darcy offers and Clint eels his way out from under the table and then pushes in between her and Pepper.

Pepper offers Phil a smirk. "She always could wrangle him better than any one of us, except maybe Natasha," Pepper says and she hears Natasha chuckle. 

There's a dull thump that shakes the meeting room's glass wall and then Thor is coming back inside, holding what looks like a struggling enraged green toddler.

"Fantastic," Phil sighs.

*

Darcy thinks she's coping pretty well with everything that's happened, all things considered. They've gone up in the elevator again to a large room with a lot of couches and a television playing Dora the Explorer. The green toddler has turned into a regular toddler with curly brown hair that has accepted being tugged around the room by Tony and presented with things that he finds of interest. Steve is sitting quietly with a sketch pad and some pencils, every now and again looking up at them all before getting back to his drawing. Clint is hanging upside down from his feet off the back of a tall stool and Darcy has been edging closer to Steve, hoping to see what he's drawing when _Jane_ comes into the room and Darcy immediately dissolves into sobs, holding up her arms and demanding to be picked up.

Natasha, the only adult currently in the room apart from Jane, raises an eyebrow at Darcy. 

"What's going on?" Jane asks.

She picks Darcy up and she smells like shampoo and coffee and poptarts and it's so familiar and at the same time so overwhelming that Darcy only cries harder while clinging to Jane's neck. 

"Darcy, Steve, Tony, Bruce and..." Natasha points around the room before she shoots a finger-gun at Clint. "Clint."

"Seriously?" Jane asks, eyes widening. She tries to pull Darcy back, probably to get a look at her, but Darcy just wails harder and clings tighter. "O-kay."

"Tag, you're it," Natasha says, bumping Jane with a hip as she passes her.

"Wait, what?"

"If Bruce hulks out, call your boyfriend. He _loves_ Thor."

"Wait, _what_?" Jane says, voice going a little squeaky with desperation. 

"Is she okay?" Darcy hears and it sounds like Clint asking.

"I'm sure she'll be, um... maybe she's a little... okay, Darcy? Can you uh..." Jane crosses over to one of the couches and settles into it, rearranging Darcy on her lap. Darcy sniffles mightily but also pulls back on the tears and offers Jane a shaky smile.

"Sorry. I just... I kinda want my mom right now."

"That's okay," Jane says. Darcy can feel Clint still hovering and she looks over her shoulder at him. He's hopping from foot to foot and he's holding Hawkeye out to her. 

"You dropped this," he says.

"Thanks," Darcy says, taking the toy and tucking it under her chin.

"You think you can give me a second so I can see what Tony is trying to feed Bruce?" Jane asks, craning over the back of the couch.

"Nothing!" Tony shrills as there is the distinct sound of crunching.

"Sorry Doctor Foster," Phil says, entering the living room, sounding harried. "Natasha was supposed to wait for me to get back."

"I think she seized an opportunity," Jane says. "You might want to check what's going on with Tony and Bruce over by the book case."

"Nothing!" Tony asserts and that's when Bruce hulks out again and Jane sighs and says, "Let me ring Thor."

*

Tony is crying. Not genteel, eyes barely leaking crying but giant wracking sobs. Steve is sitting next to him, looking about with big, distraught eyes and patting his shoulder.

There are currently no adults, other than Jarvis.

"I thought he was supposed to be big inside still," Clint says, dropping down next to Darcy on her makeshift bed and crossing his legs underneath him. They'd been put into one of the spare bedrooms for what Phil declared was _mandatory nap time_ and apparently Tony disliked the idea of that so much he was having a minor meltdown about it.

"I think we're all having a little more trouble handling emotions like this," Steve offers. From all accounts, he's still big inside too. 

"You... think?" Tony gets out through watery gasps of breath. "I don't usually cryyyyyyyy!" The last word is lost to a broken wail as Tony flings himself facedown on the other bed and Steve shifts so he's patting Tony on the back. 

Thankfully for all of them, Bruce is out cold on the floor. He'd been initially put on another bed but he slid off at some point and was happily snoring with his butt in the air and one thumb firmly stuck in his mouth. 

"Do you wanna hold my Hawkeye?" Darcy offers.

Tony's sobs trail off and he shifts his head sideways until he can look at her with one red-rimmed eye. "I don't need a _toy_ ," he huffs, mostly muffled because half his face is still buried in the blankets, and it's a complete lie because his one-eyed gaze is now fixed on the plush Darcy is holding out between the beds.

She slides off her bed and pads over, propping Hawkeye up next to Tony. "I'll just leave him here then. My arm's tired," Darcy says. 

"Don't patronize me," Tony grumbles, but he snatches the doll and curls around it, snuffling.

When she gets back to her own bed and crawls up onto it, Clint is still there, chewing on his thumbnail. "Pepper said that was me, when I grow up," Clint says. 

"Hawkeye?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, cool," Darcy offers, unsure what else she's supposed to say.

"I just mean," Clint says, hunching forward a little. "If you wanted to hold onto me while Tony was using that Hawkeye, you can."

Clint holds out his hand and it's covered in streaks of jam from their snack earlier and his nails are dirty.

Darcy takes his hand and smiles at him. "Thanks."

"Just in case you're scared," Clint says, looking away from her, but his fingers tighten reflexively.

"I'm not really scared. I just want my mom."

"I want my bow. I have one, a real one, not plush," Clint says, face shifting back and lighting up when he talks. 

"I remember that, I think?" Darcy says. She can almost picture it, a taller, broader version of Clint standing on a rooftop. She thinks maybe she saw it on television once.

"I wouldn't even shoot anything! I just wanted to hold it but Phil said no because he's a giant meanie."

"I think he's nice," Steve pipes up. Tony's sobs have dissolved into snores and Steve is now mostly just rubbing Tony's back in what looks like soothing circles. His head's drooping too and Darcy feels like maybe she could sleep.

"I'm gonna sleep," she announces and tugs Clint down with her, pushing him around until he's placed to her satisfaction so she can lie with her head on his small chest.

"But I'm not tired," Clint complains through a huge yawn.

"Sleep," Darcy instructs, the sounds of Steve rustling around before he's settled is the only other noise in the room.

*

"This is so weird," Maria Hill says, crouching down to Darcy's eye level. "You look basically the same, just smaller."

"That's called a child. You haven't ever seen one?" Phil says and Maria straightens to jab him with an elbow.

"Oh my god, tiny Barton," she crows and reaches out for him. He immediately dances backwards behind Darcy, gripping her like a shield in front of him. 

"Look, there's Tony too, and Steve," Phil says, deflecting her and then he glances back at Clint and Darcy and says, "You owe me one," to Clint over Darcy's shoulder.

"Can you call my mom?" Darcy asks Phil. She hadn't wanted to ask, but she was starting to feel the stirrings of a Tony-level tantrum on the horizon if she didn't get to see her soon.

"We need to keep this to ourselves until we figure out what happened to you," Phil says reasonably.

Darcy is not really up for reason right now. She throws back her head and _screams_.

Phil looks _horrified_ and then shocked when Clint marches around her and kicks Phil in the shin. 

Natasha appears from out of nowhere to pick up Clint by the scruff before he can inflict any more damage. "Darcy," she says in a cool, calm voice that cuts right through her hysterics. Darcy hiccups and blinks hard, looking up at Natasha as Clint is dropped back at her side and immediately wraps his small frame around her protectively. "Your mother doesn't know what we do here. She'll be scared and she won't understand."

"I don't care," Darcy sniffs, although she does. 

"If we can't sort this out in two days, I'll take you to her myself," Natasha says. 

"Promise?" To Darcy, two days seems like forever away, but it's better than the outright no Phil had been offering.

"Promise," Natasha agrees, holding out a hand. Darcy shakes it solemnly.

"Can I have my bow now?" Clint asks. 

"No," Natasha and Phil say at the same time.

*

"They're clones?" Nick Fury asks dryly. Darcy, Clint, Tony, Steve and Bruce are all lined up on the table in front of him as he paces and Thor shrugs and grimaces.

"The Grawal have done the same on many worlds," Thor says. "They take specimens for study and replace them with clones so the absence is not noticed."

"We _noticed_ ," Nick Fury says and Darcy really hopes she never does anything to be on his bad side because he looks scary right now, filled to the brim with anger. 

"They claim that all humans look very similar to them and that the Clone Master was... new," Thor says. 

"Tony," Natasha says, then waggles her hand when the small version looks at her. "The _big_ one apparently explained very politely to their _hosts_ that they were to be returned immediately."

"They're going to send them back because they asked?" Maria says with a raised eyebrow.

"Tony told them the Hulk would break their planet," Thor says, biting down on a smirk.

"They believed him?" Nick says. 

"Their planet's pretty small," Thor says, holding his thumb and index finger about an inch apart.

"Well, what do we do with-?" Maria says, waving a hand to encompass the kids.

"The Grawal say they will take them back," Thor says.

"And do what with them?" Maria asks archly.

"They will be destroyed," Thor says, looking torn.

There's a chorus of very heartfelt, "No's!" around the room. 

"They claim the Clone Master has been dismissed as his failures were so clearly terrible," Thor says, reaching out one hand to twist a lock of Darcy's hair around his fingers and giving Fury a quelling look. "I would like to see them try to take our small charges away from us."

"Who you calling defective?" small Tony shrills, throwing a pen at Thor. Natasha catches it neatly and tucks it away with a shake of her head.

"There is definitely security concerns," Fury says after a beat. "We only have their word for it that they'll do what they said they will. Who knows? In ten, maybe fifteen years we could be facing an attack from a very familiar-looking group."

"We'll find a place for them," Phil says. "Tell them not to _trouble_ themselves," he adds to Thor.

Thor inclines his head, looking relieved.

*

Phil only manages to get out, "We can place her with-"

"Don't you dare, Agent Coulson," Donna Lewis says over Skype. "You bring that girl here right now. No one's raising a Darcy Lewis except me."

"Mom, are you sure?" Darcy's bigger self asks, leaning into the screen. The actual missing Avengers, plus Darcy, had been returned that afternoon and despite a few grumbles, the Grawal had accepted that the clones would not be returned in exchange.

Apparently they took a Hulk threat very seriously.

Phil has small Darcy on his lap after her mother had insisted on seeing her. Her mom's eyes had gone big, round and watery as soon as she'd laid eyes on the little Darcy.

"We're not sure how she will develop, if at all. The Grawal was... vague," Phil adds.

"Don't care," Donna says and actually goes so far as to click her fingers. "Here, now."

"What about Clint?" Darcy asks, turning on Phil's lap to look at him with concern.

"You got others like this?" Donna asks. "Might as well bring any strays you have. Me and Terry have been rattling around this big house by ourselves for too long."

"Mom, there's having empty nest syndrome and then there's accepting alien clones into your house," the full-sized Darcy says, but the smile she gives her mom is more fond than exasperated.

"Pish posh," Donna says and Phil raises his eyebrows so high at that that they almost touch his hairline. "It'll be lovely having some little ones running around the place again. We got the room."

"SHIELD will fully reimburse-" Phil starts to say.

"Oh yeah, you guys are going to be paying through the teeth," Donna says with a waggle of her eyebrows.

"That's my mom," both Darcy's say and then grin and high-five each other.

"Oh god," Phil groans.

Maria chooses that moment to poke her head into the room. "We can't find Clint."

"Which one?" Phil asks.

"Um, either," Maria says with a grimace. "There's been some suspicious noises in the air vents for the last hour or so."

"Oh god," Phil repeats, smacking a hand over his face.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is basically inspired by the SG1 episode Fragile Balance - where aliens steal Jack O'Neill and replace him with a teenage clone version and don't realise that the humans will be able to tell the difference. 
> 
>  
> 
> [Come say hi on tumblr!](http://kellifer-k.tumblr.com/)


End file.
